Louise Nevelson was a sculptor in the 20th century. Although born in Russia, she would practice virtually her entire professional career in the United States. She was a leading artist of her time and was a pioneer for women in art. Her work earned her a reputation as a leader in assemblage and environmental sculpture.
Nevelson was born into a Jewish family in the Russian empire on September 23, 1899. Her given name was Leah Berliawsky and she was the oldest of her parent’s four children. Many members of the Beliawsky family had already began emigrating away from Russia (mostly to the United States) before Nevelson was born. Nevelson’s family stayed behind because her father took on the responsibility of caring for his elderly parents. After the death of Nevelson’s grandparents, her father joined the exodus to America while Nevelson, her mother, and siblings moved to Kiev (a part of the Russian empire at the time, now the capital of Ukraine). The absence of her father greatly distressed Nevelson, but the family would soon join her father in the United States.
Nevelson’s family settled in Rockland, Maine and took a while to adapt to life in America. English was not Nevelson’s first language (Yiddish was spoken around her home growing up). The new language combined with the family’s struggling economic situation and the religious discrimination of the time profoundly impacted her early years. She was first exposed to art at the public library and was moved to study painting further and took art classes throughout high school. Somewhat foreshadowing her significant role in the feminist movement later in her life, she served as captain of her high school’s basketball team in the pre-Title IX era. Nevelson desired to ...
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...ix million Jews killed during the Holocaust. She would work on outdoor sculptures towards the end of her career. At 75 she designed works for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Although she was viewed as a key figure in the feminist movement in art she preferred to be viewed as an artist who was a woman instead of a woman artist. She would live in New York until she died at the age of 87.
Nevelson led an interesting life and was a leader and one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century. She had to overcome many challenges in her life in order to be remembered as a successful artist.
Sources:
Chilvers, Ian. "Nevelson, Louise." The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. N. pag. Print.
"Louise Nevelson." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. .
Laura Secord was originally an American. She was born in Massachusetts on September 13, 1775. Her father was Thomas Ingersoll. He was a major in the American army. They were well known because Laura's father was a clever man. In her family there were inventors, mechanics, merchants, magistrates, teachers and soldiers. Laura had three sisters. When she was eight her mother had died and her father had gone off to war, so Laura had to look after them. After two years or so Laura's father married someone else. A month later she got ill and died. Three years later he remarried a woman named Sarah Whiting. After Thomas Ingersoll became a young Republican and saw excessive violence in Massachusetts, he moved his family to Upper Canada. When Laura was eighteen they moved again to Bustling Port, which is near the Niagara River below the falls.
Tuele, Nicholas. British Columbia women artists, 1885-1985: an exhibition. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1985. Print.
•She joined the Polish Underground when WWII broke out. (The Polish Underground aided Polish Jews)
The life of Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) affords rich opportunities for studying the developments in African-American and Ameri can life during the century following emancipation. Like W.E.B. DuBois, Cooper's life is framed by especially momentous years in U.S. history: the final years of slavery and the climactic years of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. Cooper's eclect ic and influential career mirrored the times. Although her life was privileged in relation to those of the majority of African-Americans, Cooper shared in the experiences of wrenching change, elevating promise, and heart-breaking disappointment. She was accordingly able to be an organic and committed intellectual whose eloquent speech was ensnarled in her concern for the future of African-Americans.
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp. 176-185. (College Art Association), accessed November 17, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3049368.
Cindy Sherman and Frida Kahlo were pioneers when it came to artistic creativity and relating to femininity. Without these two female self-portraiture artists, art wouldn’t be what it is today. They had definite differences when it came to their style, but in the end when it came to the purpose they both wanted to use stylistic conventions during their time and they also wanted to change those conventions. Whether it was the background or the character portrayed they have their own defined style and that makes these two women memorable artists.
Mary Cassatt was most widely known for her impressionist pieces that depicted mother (or nanny) and child. She was faced with many struggles throughout her life and received much criticism, even after her death in 1926. She found it difficult to receive appropriate recognition for her pieces during her early career. Many were unaccepted by the Salon. Cassatt lived for many years in France after her successful career, which ended abruptly when she went blind. Her talent placed her pieces in many famous museums throughout the world and landed her name among the famous artists of her time. As well as paving the way for powerful women, like herself. She lived during a time of suffragettes searching for equality.
Dexter, E. (1991). Richard Long: Tate Gallery, London - Sculpture, p. 67 . Retrieved from http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/articles/record.html?record=61.
Knowing information about the artist plays an important role in why some art was created in such an extraordinary way. Artist Christian Petersen practiced his art during a transitional stage in American sculpture when styles moved from heroic to realistic (George Washington Carver). In 1934, Iowa State President Raymond Hughes offered Petersen a one-semester residency to create the fountain and bas-reliefs in the Dairy Industry Building courtyard. Amazingly this one semester job turned into 21 years, and from 1934 to 1955 Petersen served as Iowa State's sculptor-in-residence (George Washington Carver). According t...
One of my favorite artist and sculptor is Louise Nevelson (1899-1988). She emigrated from Russia to America at age of three. She is an American sculptor famous in monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. One of her famous quote makes me be her fan, " When you put together things that others have thrown out, you are really bringing them to life. A life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created. With that belief, Nevelson collected wood scraps on the streets of New York, old wood from furniture factories and assembled them to make art.Thus, her sculptures are called Assemblages, in other word, it is the installation art, which creates an artwork from a lot of different size of objects by
Paris provided great opportunities for the young artist and she met many famous figures of the movement. She became recognizable after modeling for Man Ray who produced a series of notable and controversial photographs that featured her in the nude. Additionally, Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti invited her to display work at the Surrealist exhibition at...
She had a mother, father, and one sister named Olga who survived with her too. When her father passed, she had to help out with the family. She became a dressmaker. She knew how to speak German because her father knew how to speak it well. When the SS arrived, everyone was taken and put into the ghettos.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York: Prentice Hall Inc. and Harry N. Abrams Inc. 1995.
Barnett, Peter. “The French Revolution in Art”. ArtId, January 7th 2009. Web. 5th May 2013.
In the late 1960 to 1980s when the woman artists’ work hardly could be published, unlike the men, the feminists artists were rejected by the museums, galleries and many women. The issue was that nobody could see how woman had so much valued art works to show. Only the male artists were allow to be published as artists, while the women suffered of discrimination. What the women wanted was that the world treat them as equals to men. The woman wanted something different than the men. This world has focused on only the male artists and their work. The women were shrouded in silence. Linda Nochlin who is an art critic asks, "Why have there been no great women artist?” (Nochlin 2) Since women's art were degraded and rejected by the public, women's artwork was hardly published. However, with the hardships and the endurance of women trying to earn their rights as artists, the visibility of their art is brought out by the exhibitions they produce. Therefore, during the 1970s through 1980s, the feminist art movement was the turning point for feminist art to become more visible to the public.